


Walkies

by iamtheladyfreak (dragonet)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: 'I think my dog likes your dog', Fluff, M/M, dog-walking AU, ehh, i mean what even is that, ooc everything, super duper fluff, what a dumb thing to write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 14:39:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2113704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonet/pseuds/iamtheladyfreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a dumb first-meeting, dog-induced, fluff-ridden fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walkies

**Author's Note:**

> AN: I don't even know, man, I don't know what the hell this is. What I do know is that I find it hilarious Courf has a dog named Baron.

 

Grantaire often curses his decisions, it’s not a new thing. Specifically he curses the soft spot he has somewhere in the chest region, which means he’s unable to walk past a starving, bedraggled puppy.

He curses it especially at four o’clock on a November evening when rain is falling spottily in the dusk and a freezing wind is sweeping the dead leaves from the pavements, and Antoinette keeps scratching at the door and whining.

“Damn,” he says to her. “Don’t you fancy just chilling out with a film tonight?”

She gives him enormous brown puppy eyes, never mind that fact that she’s now a fully-grown golden retriever who cuts off circulation to his legs when she sits on his lap.

“Fine, fine,” he sighs, collecting her leash. “But you’d better appreciate it.”

She barks excitedly and gambols around his legs while he tries to open the door, sprinting ahead of him down the stairs before running back to check he’s still coming.

“Of course I’m coming,” he tells her, half-amused. “It’s raining and cold and dark, I’ve just got home from work, what else on this earth would I be doing?”

He really needs to stop talking to his dog. Out loud.

 

Grantaire used to get annoyed with Antoinette’s constant enthusiasm. She wriggles a lot, she barks a lot, she’s just generally bouncy and bubbly as only a thoroughly over-excitable golden retriever can be. Now they’re both older, he appreciates her for it. She can make him smile on the worst days.

He slouches along the path with his hands in his pockets, while she scrabbles eagerly in piles of leaf mulch and tries to drag sticks which are far too big for her mouth.

“You dummy,” he tells her as she brings him a branch the size of his arm. “You’d better not break another tooth, you know you hate the V-E-T.”

She drops the branch to look up at him with her tongue out, panting and grinning.

“You’re a dork,” he says affectionately. She woofs happily and charges off to investigate a pile of muddy horse chestnuts.

Grantaire meanders along a little further. The drizzle settles on his hoodie but doesn’t soak through, and casts orange fuzz around the streetlights just blinking on. There are other people about, dog walkers more sensible than him wearing raincoats, but they’re just vague shapes in the half-light.

“Hey! Baron! Hey!”

Grantaire looks around at the shout and sees a grey pitbull bounding towards Antoinette, who has pounced on a tennis ball that’s certainly not hers. His heart leaps in his throat, but it takes barely a second for his fear to dissipate; the grey dog yips at Antoinette, crouching playfully. She reciprocates in kind as the pitbull’s owner runs up behind Grantaire.

“Sorry,” he pants, resting his hands on his knees to catch his breath. “I threw the ball a little far, he never listens to me.”

“That’s okay,” Grantaire says, watching the two dogs following each other in circles, sniffing. “I think your dog likes mine.”

“Heh. Yeah, I guess so,” the guy says, glancing up at the dogs. Then he looks at Grantaire and does the smallest of double-takes, flicking across his chest and shoulders and up to his face. Grantaire tries not to stare as their eyes meet for the slightest second.

“I’m Grantaire,” Grantaire says. “That’s Antoinette. She’s dumb but she’s mine.”

“I’m Enjolras,” the guy replies. “That’s Baron. He’s also dumb but not, fortunately, mine. He’s my roommate’s, I just walk him when Courf works late. Baron!” he shouts, and is summarily ignored. “He never listens to me.”

“Antoinette!” Grantaire calls. He tries not to feel smug when she gallops over to him immediately, followed closely by Baron.

“Damn,” Enjolras says ruefully, ruffling his hair out of his face. “You’ve got to teach me how to do that.”

“It’s all in your tone of voice,” Grantaire says, clipping Antoinette’s lead on. “Er – are you alright?”

“Fine,” the other man says, slightly strained because Baron has wound his leash around his ankles. “Just a little tied up.”

Grantaire rolls his eyes. This guy is a bigger dork than Antoinette.

“Hey,” he says, grabbing Baron as the dog makes another pass. “Sit down, you.”

To his amazement, Baron promptly plonks himself down on the wet grass, tongue lolling out and looking exceptionally pleased with himself.

“Keep still,” Grantaire tells Enjolras and kneels down, keeping one hand on Baron’s collar, to untangle the leash.

“Thanks,” Enjolras says a bit breathlessly as Grantaire undoes the last knot tied over his trainers and stands up. “I promise I’m not usually this inept, Baron just hates me.”

“I guess so,” Grantaire says and they both turn to look at the dog, who gazes up at them with an expression of complete innocence.

“Courfeyrac never believes me when I say this hellhound has it in for me,” Enjolras complains. “Ah, well. Thanks a lot for your help.”

He retrieves Baron’s leash from the grass and fumbles until it’s clipped in.

“See you,” Grantaire says, and makes off into the mist.

He hasn’t gone ten feet when Enjolras calls back.

“Antoinette has my tennis ball!”

“So she does,” Grantaire murmurs, looking down and trying not to imagine a knowing look on Antoinette’s face around the ball.

“Sorry,” Enjolras pants, running up with Baron snapping at his feet playfully. “She could keep it, but that’s my last one, Baron keeps chewing through them.”  
“Yeah, sure,” Grantaire says, retrieving the gummy tennis ball. Enjolras receives it with disgust.

“I hate dog spit,” he sighs. “Ah, well. Thanks again.”

Grantaire turns away but before he can go, Enjolras speaks again.

“Hey, Grantaire, er,” he says eloquently. Grantaire turns back, wishing he was less enamoured of blue eyes so he could leave and have time for a bath. “Do you, I mean, would you – I mean, do you want to get coffee? Maybe tomorrow – or, you know, the next day, if you’re busy, or just sometime…”

“Sure,” Grantaire says, surprised, and scrawls his number on Enjolras’s palm.

It occurs to him, as he watches the red raincoat disappear into the dusk – Enjolras nearly pulled off his feet by the pitbull – that he may have just agreed to go on a date with a fumbling, stuttering, almost certainly insane, beautiful dog walker.

He looks down at Antoinette sternly.

“This is your fault,” he tells her.

She woofs in agreement and frolics all the way home.

 


End file.
